Sir Bob Geldof was in Greater Manchester this morning to get his hands on the new Band Aid 30 single, now available on CD.

The new version of the single, which went to number one when it was released digitally last month, includes vocals from Guy Garvey, Sam Smith, Paloma Faith and Ed Sheeran.

The single, originally released in 1984, will help raise funds to fight the ebola crisis in West Africa and Geldof says sales from the higher priced CD will make all the difference.

Speaking to the M.E.N. at Asda this morning he said: “This is the game changer. You know the download gets the whole argument going, gets people thinking. But if people have bought the download, if they could come in and buy this then things really start happening.

“What I want to do is get this back up to number one with physical sales that is the first Band Aid challenge."

The star was spotted by a number of surprised shoppers this morning as he rocked up to Asda Trafford Park after the retailer bought 250,000 copies of the Band Aid 30 single, guaranteeing a £1 million donation from pre-sales.

Later today Sir Bob will head over to Asda HQ in Leeds to thank the supermarket bosses personally as well as recognising the north of England as long-time supporter of the Band Aid project.

“I want to go and thank them on behalf of us all as they have ordered 250,000 which means a million quid and that prompted all the other supermarkets to buy about 50,000.

“If we look at the sales throughout the 30 years the north has been the bedrock of this so you know, it’s not a thank you to the north me being here, but I should come to them if they constantly come to me.”